


Yeehaw

by A_Diamond



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe, Cowboy Dean Winchester, Fluff, Inspired by Art, M/M, Meet-Cute, Rodeo Competitions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-18
Updated: 2019-08-18
Packaged: 2020-09-07 04:29:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,843
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20303485
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/A_Diamond/pseuds/A_Diamond
Summary: Cas’s preconceived notions about rodeos are proven wrong in many ways, but none more important than this: Dean Winchester, bull riding champion.





	Yeehaw

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Aceriee](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aceriee/gifts).

> A few days ago, I came across [this Kickstarter campaign for pride themed cowboy hat pins](https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/872257854/can-i-get-a-yeehaw) and expressed a need for Dean wearing the bi hat. 15 minutes later a sketch dropped into our discord chat from the marvelously talented Aceriee. Thank you, friend! <3 I hope you like this in return. **Update:** The sketch has now turned into [this amazing work](https://missaceriee.tumblr.com/post/188084805068/ages-ago-alxdiamond-told-me-about-these-awesome) of Dean in his bi hat _and_ Cas in a pan hat!
> 
> Thanks also to the irreplaceable superhoney, who read over this for me and helped get the perfect ending!

Cas had been dubious when Meg first suggested coming here. Even his eventual agreement came with a certain amount of skepticism; when he thinks ‘_rodeo_,’ as an urban queer, he’s not instantly filled with a sense of safety and comfort. But Meg berated him for buying into stereotypes and believing his baseless fears instead of her actual experience, and she wasn’t wrong, so here they are.

She’s dressed for the occasion. Not dressed up. It’s not a costume, it’s work clothes—she grew up on a ranch, still goes out to help her parents during calving season. She looks like she belongs, which brings Cas to the very belated realization that when he was expressing concerns about the sorts of people who would be at the event, he wasn’t just insulting anonymous strangers who never needed to know or care about his opinion. These are her people. He forgets sometimes, because when he met her she already lived in the city and seemed so at home there, but they are. He was insulting them; he was insulting and demeaning her, by extension.

Someday he might learn to look around before he stops in the middle of walking, but today is not that day. As soon as it occurs to him that he owes Meg an apology, he halts in his tracks and turns to give her one. In what ought to have been an extremely predictable outcome, someone walks into him from behind before he can even get started. Already off-balance thanks to his own sudden movement, Cas tips to the side and almost falls onto the dirt-and-straw floor of the arena.

The only thing that keeps him upright is the arm that wraps around his waist from the side and holds steady, even when his surprise makes him over-correct and stumble in the opposite direction. He’s pressed back against a firm chest just long enough for him to regain his footing, then he’s released and the heat of the other body moves away.

The first thing he sees when he rights himself is Meg, who as usual is making no attempt to hide that she’s laughing at him. Then he finds the man who bumped him and subsequently saved him, and he thinks maybe he should obstruct walkways without warning more often, not less.

He has clothes like Meg’s, leather jacket and flannel shirt and jeans that can stand up to hard use. He has freckles over his tanned face and a charming smile. He has bright eyes that look Cas over with more than just passing concern for his welfare. “Y’alright there?” he asks. There’s no derision or anger in his voice, despite the entire situation being Cas’s fault, despite Cas being an obvious outsider here. It’s warm and genuine, and carries an inexplicable sense of intimacy despite the dozens of people flowing around them.

Or so Cas thinks, but the next moment he doubts himself, because the man’s gaze snaps away and his face closes off.

“Sorry,” he says, “I—sorry,” then he’s stepping around Cas. Whether it’s discomfort over his sexuality or somewhere he actually has to be, he’s definitely in a rush as he moves away from them.

At least it’s a good view as he goes.

The man soon disappears through the crowd, and Cas finds Meg looking after him, too. A childish part of him wants to call dibs, that he saw the man first and claimed him by way of bodily contact, but he doesn’t. For one thing, the man’s clearly not interested enough to even bother making an excuse for why he had to run off after looking at Cas like that. For another, Meg would just see it as a challenge and she’s much more likely to be his type than Cas is.

Cas doesn’t have a chance to say any of that or to follow up on his original intention of apologizing to her for earlier. Flashing him a grin he’s learned not to trust, Meg grabs his wrist and drags him in the direction the man went, at approximately the same speed. She ignores his startled questions, either because she can’t hear him even though he feels like he’s shouting more than loud enough to cut through the chatter or, more likely, because he’s following her anyway and she knows he’ll keep jogging after her without explanation for at least another twenty minutes before he starts to get irritable about it.

It doesn’t take nearly that long to reach her apparent destination, a section of arena seating around a large dirt ring. The stands are pretty crowded already, but Meg smiles at a couple people and says something Cas can’t hear to another, and like magic there’s an empty space for them. It’s right next to a gated enclosure that’s empty now, but he at least knows enough to recognize the pen where the animals and sometimes riders are kept.

Once they’re seated, he tries again. “Are you going to tell me what that was about?”

“No,” she answers, which also should have been predictable. “It’s more fun to let you figure it out.”

He glares at her as an announcement comes over the speakers. He can’t understand it, between the roaring of the crowd and the thick accent and the fact that he’s only even sure a third of the things being said are real words, but Meg says, “Here we go,” like it meant something.

What it meant shortly becomes obvious, as an aggrieved snort to his right draws his attention to a bull being guided into the pen, ropes wrapped around its chest and a strap of some sort further back. It’s enormous. He had a vague sense that they were large creatures, but seeing it in person is something else entirely. He makes a note in the back of his mind to reevaluate his mental images of bison and rhinoceroses, if this is the size of cattle, but that’s a matter for a later date. Right now, he’s still busy being stunned by the bull and thinks that’s likely to last for a while yet.

As he stares, it turns and regards him with a huge, dark eye and snorts again.

Meg nudges him, laughing. “I think he likes you.”

“He seems pretty docile,” Cas whispers back without breaking eye contact. He feels silly at the impulse; everyone around them is being much louder and clearly the bull doesn’t care, but he’s the only one being stared down at the moment. He’d rather come across as foolish than inadvertently do something to set it off.

That just makes Meg laugh harder. “This old bastard, docile? Not a day in his life, even when he’s got a whole herd to stud.”

He’s surprised into losing his contest with the bull to stare at her instead. “You know the bulls?”

“Not all of them, but this guy’s probably the meanest bull working right now. He’s been on the circuit six years now, which isn’t a record but is pretty damn long. And, coincidentally, is just as long as the reigning champ who’s about to ride him. Larry here’s the only bull he ever wrecked on in competition, and this is their first rematch.”

“Wrecked?”

“Got thrown. A rider has to stay on for eight seconds to qualify for scoring, and…”

She keeps talking but Cas stops listening. Movement in the pen had caught his eye again and when he looked over, it wasn't the bull staring at him. It wasn't a stranger, either. The man’s face is still tighter than the easy charm Cas first saw on it, and with this new context he recognizes the change as nervousness. When his gaze locks with Cas’s he offers a slight smile, but his attention isn’t really on Cas.

Understandably.

Nevertheless, Cas gives him back the best smile he has. He knows it can’t possibly express the whole variety of things he wants it to—that he’s sorry for being an obstacle on the way to something this important but not sorry they met, however briefly; that he hopes the ride goes well and despite not having any interest in or knowledge of rodeo rankings, he wants this man to win whatever he’s competing for; that he may never recover if he sees this handsome cowboy he’s taken an interest in get gored by the meanest bull working right now; that he’s very much considering getting over the few doubts lingering after Meg’s lecture to openly flirt with the same handsome cowboy.

“Dean Winchester,” Meg says into his ear. All traces of mockery are gone.

Cas appreciates having a name put to the man almost as much as he appreciates Meg not saying anything else after it. He’s too busy being entranced by Dean Winchester preparing for his ride.

Dean straddles bars on the far side of the pen, sitting astride the top railing for one deep breath before reaching over to grab the opposite rail. His foot touches down on Larry’s back and the bull rumbles and shifts, but his movement isn’t violent enough to unsettle Dean’s boot. When Dean swings his other leg over and drops fully onto the bull, he gets even less of a reaction.

He’s lost the leather jacket, traded for heavy glove on his right hand which he rubs over the ropes before wrapping his hand into them with help from a woman standing on the platform next to him. There’s another addition, a colorful cowboy hat that Cas only gets a brief impression of before the gate flies open and Larry flies out. Just like Meg predicted, any traces of good nature are gone the moment Larry has the space to act out his displeasure. He leaps forward then kicks his back legs up so high he looks nearly vertical, only to land and spin and do it again. And again.

Throughout it all, Dean keeps his seat astride the bucking bull. His body moves fluidly with every violent jump and twist, his upper half swinging around with the momentum like a rag doll but always coming back to center, his legs never losing their place around Larry’s middle. One arm waves through the air above his head, the classic pose that always seemed like it should look ridiculous—does look ridiculous when people mime it, and not just because they’re usually drunk. In action, there’s nothing silly about it. Or maybe that’s just because of the way Dean makes it look as natural as everything else, an easy extension of himself that flows and flexes and then regains its balance like nothing unusual is happening. Like he’s swaying along at a concert instead of clinging to an enormous, enraged mammal for dear life.

The crowd around him is wild, cheering and yelling and whistling, but Cas watches breathless as Larry carries Dean on a rampage across the arena and Dean refuses to be moved by it. It seems to stretch on forever, but there must be some kind of signal that the required time has been met, because between one kick and another, Dean frees his gloved hand from its bindings and lets the bull’s next leap launch him into a smooth dismount.

When he lands on his feet, everyone in the crowd jumps to theirs. Cas is among them before he even realizes, caught up in the fervor and also not wanting to lose his view of Dean. Dean waves his acknowledgement and appreciation to the stands as a trio in heavy padding corrals Larry to a different gate; now that he’s more or less standing still, Cas can finally see the details of his hat. The brim is blue, the crown pink, and a purple ribbon wraps around the base where the two meet. It could be coincidence, but he doubts it: the particular shades and placements are very specific.

Dean Winchester, champion bull rider, is wearing a bisexual pride flag.

There isn’t a single person in the crowd who isn’t cheering for him.

Maybe, if Cas forced himself to be cynical, he could tell himself that it’s because people don’t know the meaning of the hat. But he doesn’t want to tell himself that, and what’s more, he wouldn’t believe it even if he tried. It’s impossible to imagine that someone who gets as much public attention as Dean must would wear a hat like that while trying to stay closeted. He’s out and proud and supported by this community that Cas had been so quick to dismiss.

No wonder Meg had read him the riot act.

“I’m sorry,” he tells her now, finally. The stands are beginning to settle back down as the announcer mumbles over the speakers and Dean traipses back toward the pen he and Larry came out of, where the woman who helped him get tied in is waiting. Meg has taken her seat, so Cas sits, too. “I was a dick. Thank you for bringing me here anyway.”

“You were. But you’re also a super sheltered city boy who’s willing to learn, so I’ll let it go this time.” She pats his cheek, then adds, “You can thank me when you call me in the morning.”

Before he can ask what that cryptic comment means, she stands and her attention shifts. “I’ve got your momma’s number,” she tells someone behind him. “Don’t make me call her, cowboy.”

She’s already walking away by the time Cas turns around and sees Dean standing right there, in the narrow aisle between their seats and the railing of the pen where a new bull is moodily waiting for a new rider. His hat is tipped up on one finger, like an informal salute acknowledging Meg’s warning, but he keeps the pose as his eyes meet Cas’s again.

“Howdy, partner.” It’s the cheesiest thing Cas has ever heard. It’s also a lot more charming than it has any right to be, just like the soft smile that accompanies it. “I was hoping maybe you wouldn’t mind my company for the rest of the roughstock events.”

He’s not sure what’s more surprising—the proposal itself or the unassuming, almost shy way it’s offered. Undoubtedly Dean could have his pick of company, any of hundreds or thousands of fans who would at the very least let him sit with them, but he’s still not presuming his welcome or acting like Cas should be flattered by it.

Cas is, of course, flattered by it. “Of course. I mean, I wouldn’t mind. I’d like that. But you should know I might not be very good company. I don’t really know about any of this.” He circles his hand to suggest, he hopes, the entirety of their surroundings. “It’s the first time I’ve been to one of these. Meg invited me along—you know her?” He has to assume the answer is yes, given that Meg threatened to call Dean’s mom on him and Dean didn’t object, but sometimes it can be hard to tell with her.

“Our parents are neighbors,” Dean confirms. “I’d be happy to explain anything you have questions about, if you’d like. It’s not my first rodeo.”

Cas groans to cover his laugh, but the crinkles at the corners of Dean’s eyes tell him that some of it got out anyway. “Does that line work for you often?”

“You tell me,” Dean says, still smiling sweet and sincere. “This is the first time I’ve tried it.”

It works for him.

The next rider gets unseated right out of the gate, bouncing up and forward. He falls over the bull’s shoulder, but only his feet hit the ground. His hand is stuck in the rope. Despite his lack of general knowledge, Cas can tell it’s not a good thing when the man gets dragged around by the bull, especially since the animal continues to kick and spin in agitation. Dean tenses, too, but leans his shoulder in to Cas’s so he can whisper reassurances to him.

It’s called getting hung up, it can be dangerous but he just needs to stay calm and get his glove out and at this level he’ll know that, he’ll have done it before. There are people to help, the bullfighters in their padding who move in to distract and steady the bull while the rider works himself free. All this is happening as Dean talks Cas through it, and it’s only a few heart-stopping seconds before the rider pulls his hand clear and moves out of range of the flailing hooves.

They both relax. Dean doesn’t lean away.

By the time the third rider finishes his qualifying time with a ride that goes well but not as well as Dean’s, Dean’s hand has found its way next to Cas’s on the stadium bench, so close Cas can feel the radiating heat of his skin.

By the time the fourth one starts, their fingers are intertwined. Dean’s palm is rough and callused but his touch is gentle.

Dean keeps holding on long after eight seconds have passed.


End file.
